


Poison Seven - A Thousand Words

by Ginnybag



Series: Poison [7]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M, Uh oh!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 00:20:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13692900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginnybag/pseuds/Ginnybag
Summary: I'll just say I'm sorry, and then back away quietly.....





	Poison Seven - A Thousand Words

**Author's Note:**

> I'll just say I'm sorry, and then back away quietly.....

 

_Time manipulates your heart, preconceptions torn apart_  
_Begin to doubt my state of mind_

_I won't go down on what I said, I won't retract convictions read  
I may perplex, but I'm not blind_

  _I’ll bear the cost, shed my skin, call you up and then..._  
_I'll say the words out loud_

_You could resurrect a thousand words_

_To deceive me more and more_

_A thousand words won’t give the reasons_

_Why I don't need you anymore_

 

Savage Garden – A Thousand Words

| 

 

_I look in your eyes, there’s a distant light_  
_You and I know there’ll be a storm tonight_

  _Think twice for the sake of our love, for the memory_  
_For the fire and the faith that was you and me_  
_I know it isn’t easy when your soul cries out for higher ground_

_Don’t say what you’re about to say_  
_Look back before you leave my life_  
_Be sure before you close that door_  
  
_Don’t do what you’re about to do_  
_My everything depends on you_  
_And whatever it takes, I’ll sacrifice_  
_Before you roll those dice, think twice_

 

 

Celine Dion – Think Twice

   
  
---|---  
  
 

 

“ _Murderer!_ ”

 

The snarled accusation wasn’t loud in the suddenly still air of the tent but it made every one of the assembled officers jump in shock, the more nervy ones immediately reaching for side arms or beginning to push chairs back, and the more stable looking between Treize and Zechs warily, wondering what would happen next.

 

None of them spoke; none of them looked like it had even entered their heads.

 

“Major Marquise. I presume you are addressing me?” Treize asked icily, when the last echoes of Zechs’s voice had died away. His eyes had locked onto the younger man as soon as he’d stormed through the flap and they hadn’t wavered an inch since.

 

“Who else would I be?” Zechs replied darkly, and the menace in his voice and his posture had one or two of the audience paling in fear.

 

There was another weighted pause, and then Treize gave a single, terse nod and turned his eyes to his guests. “Gentlemen, ladies - give me the room, please,” he said shortly. “I appear to have other business with my officer.”

 

The men and women around the table scrambled to obey with the speed of military discipline, coming to their feet and hurrying towards the flap in a stream. They all gave Zechs a wide berth as they ducked out into the evening air of the desert and only one of them, an older man with graying hair and a Lieutenant-Colonel’s pins, glanced back at Treize as he left, double-checking his orders.

 

Treize paid him no attention. He’d gone back to his unwavering stare at his pilot.

 

The man moved on after a moment, letting the tent flap drop shut behind him and leaving Zechs and Treize completely alone.

 

“Have you gone completely mad, Zechs?” Treize demanded immediately, cutting across the tension between the two men with his voice. His expression had shifted the moment the other officers had emptied from the tent and he was looking at Zechs with his eyes narrowed, his posture taut behind the table.

 

Zechs shook his head slowly, giving a low, soft chuckle that should have made the hairs on Treize’s neck stand up. “No,” the younger man said quietly. “No, I haven't. I think I’ve finally come to my senses.”

 

“Oh?” Treize snapped. “Well, that’s certainly not how it looks.” He drew a deep breath. “How dare you walk in here and speak to me like that!” he spat, and his voice was a lash across the room. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

 

On any other night, at any earlier time, Zechs would have flinched at Treize speaking to him with such venom in his tone, wary of the older man’s temper with good cause and always miserable when they weren’t on good terms. This night, he merely shrugged insouciantly, clearly uncaring, and asked, “That's a good question. Why don't you remind yourself of that?”

 

Treize’s expression closed down completely. “Games, now, Major? My patience has limits, and you are already very, very much past them.”

 

Zechs’s hands balled into fists by his sides as he took a step forward. “It’s funny you should phrase it like that,” he said, voice low. “My patience has limits, too. Just how long did you think you were going to be able to play me for a fool, Treize?”

 

The question seemed to catch Treize off guard and he blinked through his anger, his expression softening just fractionally as he folded his arms across his chest and raised a disdainful eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?” he asked coolly. “What do you mean by that, pray tell?”

 

“I mean that I can read plans, Treize. I can understand the figures and the markings on them, and I can imagine, only too fucking well, what they really translate to.” Zechs shook his head wildly. “I’m done with it, Treize,” he spat. “I’m done being your attack dog. I’m done letting you make me into a bloody handed monster in your own image. I’m done slaughtering innocents in pursuit of your half-mad dreams of world dominance! The AIS Commander pisses you off, so you do that? It's all about your fucking ego, isn't it?”

 

“What,” Treize demanded, “the hell are you talking about?”

 

“That!” Zechs flung his hand at the tent wall, gesturing, voice crazed and hot. “That mission! That wasn't tactical. That wasn't 'needed'. That was nothing more than bloody murder!”

 

“Major Marquise, I strongly suggest --”

 

“Civilians!” Zechs shouted. “That wasn't a base. It wasn't a target. That was nothing, nothing, _nothing_ but civilians. Old men, women, children. Why?!”

 

“Our data suggested --”

 

“Why?!” Zechs repeated, wild and high. “Treize, why?!”

 

Treize slammed his hand down onto the table, making them both jump. His expression was icy cold, and his eyes flashed pure fire. “Do not interrupt me again, Major!”

 

He drew a deep breath, visibly pulling his control together. “Forgetting that you have no right to storm in here, forgetting that you have no right to speak to me like that, forgetting, even, that you are a soldier with absolutely no right to ever even ask questions of your commanders, much less demand the answers, you are still so far out of line it astonishes me!” He glared for a moment, perhaps expecting an answer. “What is the _matter_ with you, Major?”

 

“Me?” Zechs spluttered, heart pounding in his chest until he thought he would never be able to take a deep breath again. “What's the matter with me? I don't – who even are you?!”

 

It was the question that had been buzzing in the back of his mind since the night before, since he'd read Noin's letter. He'd buried it under the drama of the day, but it burst from him now, furious and accusative. “Who are you? And how could ever ask me to be okay with any of this?”

 

There was another moment of chilling silence, and then Treize shifted his weight, his body rocking smoothly as he dropped his arms again and glared. One hand rubbed at his other forearm for a moment, an unconscious gesture missed by both of them.

 

“Oh, why do I think that is your real question?” he murmured, after a beat, and it was such a soft comparison to Zechs's angry yelling that it was almost a shock. “Always, ever, not really about the issue, but about what it means for you. I don't know why I still forget.” He shook his head. “I am who I have always been, you are a Pilot under my command and I've asked you to do nothing more than your job. I won't apologise for that – there was, and is, more at stake than just you. However much it suits you to forget it.”

 

He paused a second time, drawing a low breath that had all the hallmarks of him using it to rein himself in. “You're hysterical, Major,” he dismissed bluntly. “You're overwrought, over-strained and overtired. You're taking leave of yourself with it.” He shook his head again, then moved around the table. “Go to bed,” he ordered. “Get some sleep whilst I try to – well, I'll think of something to explain this.”

 

He indicated the tent, and the fact that it was empty, and the scene Zechs had made.

 

It was probably Zechs's cue to be embarrassed, recanting his anger and grateful for his friend's tolerance. It would have been, in the past.

 

Not this time. This time, Zechs was so far past that he could barely see straight.

 

“I am not,” he hissed, “overwrought. I am not overtired. I am not a fucking child for you to send me to bed without supper, and you do, by Christ, owe me answers! You sent me to murder _children_ tonight, Treize!”

 

He reached out for the older man as he snarled, and missed only because Treize stepped back hurriedly.

 

“Do not!”

 

The older man stopped, backed against the frame of the folding table the Officers had been seated around. He should have looked trapped, pinned, cornered – instead he looked anything but, and livid with it.

 

“I warned you once before – do not touch me again!”

 

Zechs stilled, momentarily caught by memories of an argument in a shadowy corridor in Salzburg, of an attempt to keep Treize with him that had turned into a schoolboy scuffle. Yes, Treize had warned him then never to cross that line again. It was one of the few things he'd been clear he would not tolerate – not that he'd ever explained why.

 

It presumed, though, that Zechs cared currently what Treize would or would not stand for – and he didn't.

 

Without paying it any more mind, he closed the gap and grabbed for the older man, tangling his hand in the white-faced lapel of his jacket to hold him still.

 

Treize stared at him for a moment, then brought his hands up, broke his hold and shoved him backwards, pushing with enough force that he stumbled on the sand, only barely keeping from a crashing fall.

 

“I warned you,” Treize said, and his voice had dropped to be nothing but a storm warning, “I warned you. You need to go now, before you say or do what I cannot forgive.”

 

Zechs caught his balance, and shook his head. “Oh, no. I won't,” he returned hotly. “Not this time, not before you explain. And not,” he added, narrowing his eyes, “with a thousand honeyed words and deflections, not with a million stories and illusions meant as rationalisation and dismissal. You'll explain in plain English, Treize, because I know what you are, I know you're cleverer than me with this and I know you'll lie if I let you. I know you'll play tricks and games and weave me up till I don't know what's happening. You aren't any different than Noventa for that,” he spat. “But not this time. If you care about me at all, you'll tell me the truth now, so I can understand why you think any of this is acceptable!”

 

He was angry enough to intend that exactly how it had been said and Treize, starting to colour with his own temper, froze.

 

“I don't think that you mean that,” he said quietly, challenging the certainty.

 

Zechs merely set his feet more firmly and lifted his chin. “Oh? Try me.”

 

There was silence for a space, broken only by both of them breathing heavily in the close air. Then Treize shifted, stepping forward as he closed his eyes for a moment.

 

“Zechs, be careful what you say now,” he bade as he opened them again. His face had settled into the neutral lines he hid behind when he wanted no-one to know what he was thinking, but there was something in his eyes that almost made Zechs reconsider. “Whatever you might think of me, I don't owe you any answers for my actions and I won't be threatened. Think before you speak again – think twice, and be sure you mean what you say and want what you may get.”

 

The blond almost hesitated, almost backed off, as he would have any other day – then he recalled the plans he had seen, the scenarios, the mission briefs and he shook his head firmly. “I don't need to do anything,” he insisted. “You need to tell me that I didn't destroy that village to soothe your ego,” he hissed. “You need to tell me that you aren't planning to torture and burn a whole region just for revenge. Explain it to me, Treize, because I do not understand! How can you be my friend, sleep with me, say you love me – and then ask me to accept that? How can you make me into the man who destroyed my family?”

 

Treize looked at him steadily, and then turned away. “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury,” he murmured, and it was achingly soft. “You should remember that, when you blame me. I haven't made you into anything,” he said, more clearly. “You did that all by yourself.”

 

Zechs gasped, shocked to his core. “How dare you –!”

 

“Tell you the truth?” Treize interrupted. “Haven't you just demanded I do exactly that?”

 

But Zechs, past the initial stab of disbelief, couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. “Yeah, here we go,” he snarled, furious all over again. “You'll quote dead Romans and offer insult but never answer the fucking question! God forbid you ever admit you're anything less than perfect!”

 

“I'm not, and I don't pretend that I am.” The older man shook his head. “Zechs, stop this,” he begged softly. “I never claimed this would be easy; I know that it hurts. I don't enjoy it either, but what do you think this will achieve?” he asked, and he gestured between the two of them, encompassing their anger and the tension in the air. “I won't be threatened and I won't be held hostage – not even by you. Be careful what you say next. Please.”

 

“Careful...? No, fuck this,” Zechs snarled back. “Fuck this, and fuck you! We're done!” He turned on his heel, wanting out of the space and away from the older man before he choked him. “Get Une to find me when you've decided to be a human fucking being!”

 

“Yes, I think we are.”

 

It was very quietly said, so much so that Zechs barely heard it, which was perhaps why he missed the shading in Treize's tone. Nor did it follow, not really, which made Zechs pause just a little.

 

“What?” he snapped.

 

“We are,” Treize repeated, the scuff of his boots on the sand betraying that he was moving before the squeak of the chair gave him away as sitting down again. “Done,” he clarified. “I don't have anything I want to say to you, and I don't imagine that will change anytime soon. We're done, Major.”

 

It was a formal military dismissal, and Zechs took it as that, finally storming from the tent in high fury, leaving Treize sitting at the table in the gathering gloom alone. He didn't look back at all.

\------------------------------

 

It took him a week to realize that Treize had taken Zechs's 'we're done' in a very different light than it had been intended – and by then it was far too late.

 

Where Zechs had been speaking about their conversation, Treize, it seemed, had decided it meant their relationship total, and, worse, had promptly retreated behind his rank and his workload, ever expanding as he pushed his plans to success, and refused to allow any face to face contact between them at all where Zechs might have tried to explain.

 

In fact, he didn't even communicate remotely. Every order he gave, he relayed through Une or one of Staff Officers, including the one that, 10 days after Zechs had blown up at him, sent the younger man away from the Arabian campaign and across the world to China, to rejoin the unit he'd been pulled from.

 

China was followed by L1 – where Zechs received word that Jean-Michel Rena had been killed and L5 had been stormed in revenge, and spent twenty minutes screaming into his phone, only to delete the message before it was saved – and then by 3 weeks at Barclay Base in the Antarctic for major suit overhauls.

 

When the email he sent to Treize to mark the man's 24th Birthday in June went without reply, reality sank in, leaving Zechs to wonder if there was even anything of their friendship left.

 

It was during a sweaty, miserable campaign to Bolivia in the late Autumn before he finally spoke to the redhead again, 10 minutes on Christmas Day across a crowded Ballroom before he saw him, and his own 19th Birthday in January before there was any sign of a thaw in the permafrost that Treize had induced following Zechs's firestorm.

 

It wasn't enough, but it was better than nothing.

 

Be careful what you say, indeed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the end.
> 
> There was, however, no way that the two men we see in the series were still in an active relationship. Everything about their interaction screamed, to me, that of two people who've tried it and had it end, badly, but who still love each other. I needed, therefore, to get them to that place, from the simple friendship of childhood to whatever fuels Treize's alternating shameless flirting and bitter needling and Zechs's 'like me, like me, like me more!' and 'nah, screw you, I'm outta here' moments. Their interaction, and the storyline between them, is too complex for what we're shown - there had to be a history.
> 
> Further, the break had to happen before L5 - because Zechs seems to never make the connection between that and why Chang guns for Treize, and, too, to allow Noin, anticipating seeing her friend again after a year apart to realistically think she has a shot. Noin's far from a stupid woman, and nor do I think she's a deceitful one - it's not in her character to make that play if she thinks Zechs is committed to someone else. It could have been that she simply didn't know - but she seems fast enough to think that Treize will take extraordinary measures to protect Zechs's feelings.
> 
> But, as I said, not the end. Poison Nine (yes, I said nine) is currently sitting at a couple of hundred thousand words, and far from finished. It has, for those of you interested, the working title 'Antidote'. I'll post back here when I start posting that.
> 
> Poison Eight will be a series of shorts which bridge the gap between 7 and 9. Some of them are written, some are outlines, some are only in my head. What gets included eventually will depend on what final form Nine takes, so that that story makes sense. There's a 5.5 year gap between the end of 7 and the start of 9. A lot (has to) happens.
> 
> As a final note - I wrote 7 as part of a challenge to myself. It's not a song-fic, but the ending feelings of the two characters are summarised by the two songs quoted at the top. The challenge came in the structure I took from one of them. The story itself is longer, of course, but - If I have counted correctly - there are exactly 1000 words of spoken dialogue in the text. 200,000 words to put a relationship together, the same to fix it, and only a 1000 words to tear it to pieces.


End file.
